A Former Post Office

The Head Post Office in Liverpool was built in 1899 to the design of architect and surveyor Henry Tanner. Located between Victoria Street and Whitechapel, the building occupies a prime city centre site. This was the principal sorting office as well as offering a large public post office hall. The building suffered severe bomb damage in the blitz of 1941 and when rebuilt  was reduced to two storeys.

After closure, ownership passed to Liverpool property developers, The Walton Group who proposed converting the building to a shopping centre incorporating a new post office counter. When I visited the building it was in a derelict condition internally yet it still contained many of the fittings from its former days.

My model was constructed to help in the process of planning and discussing various options for the building including a possible extention on its southern side. Only the facades were modelled in detail using minimal colour; just the doors and columns featured a splash of colour.

Walton Group's plans were not realised and the site was eventually redeveloped to become the Metquarter, a two floor luxury shopping centre with 38 outlets.

Having A Field Day

The village of Furness Vale in Derbyshire has a football club that has been playing in local leagues for well over a century. For many years the team has struggled to play on a poorly drained, muddy pitch with a distinct slope from side to side. Community volunteers have been campaigning to take over the "Football Field" from the local authority and to provide new sports facilities for the village.
The playing pitch will be drained and levelled, changing rooms built and a games court and skate park constructed. The field will be encircled with a new path and provided with benches and exercise equipment.
The Furness Vale Field Day is an annual fundraising and publicity event which has proved a very popular family day out. Live bands perform throughout the day and attractions include a dog show, village games, childrens entertainments and a number of non-profit and commercial stands. A beer tent and food and soft drink stalls provide refreshments. My 1:200 scale model of the proposals is always on display.
The Field Day takes place each year around the 16th May. 12 noon to 6pm. Admission is free so if you are in the locality come along and enjoy the occasion.

The Peak Resort

Peak Resort is a £400 million leisure development to be built on reclaimed opencast mining land at Unstone, Chesterfield. An existing golf course will be re-modelled to create an 18 hole championship standard course, driving range and practice course. 250 holiday lodges will be built in the extensive woodlands.
The centrepiece of the development will be four domed structures which will contain all weather leisure and sports facilities including water sports and adventure centres as well as holiday apartments, hotel, retail and catering outlets and a medical spa. The 300 acres of parkland will be laid out with walking and cycling trails.
The project received reserved matters planning consent in 2008 and a recent investment by the U.S.Grand Heritage Hotel Group will see work commence this year. The deal was announced by Prime Minister David Cameron buring his recent American tour. The site is owned by developers Birchall Properties led by Rupert Carr. The project has been deveoped by architects Stanton Williams and Gaunt Golf Design.
My model was built at a scale of 1 : 1000 and accurately represents the topography of the site and extends to show the relationship with nearby roads and housing. As it was proposed that development shoud be in stages, the model has a removable centre section to demonstrate that process.

Modelling Beverley

Flemingate, Beverley 

A 16 acre site, to the east of Beverley Minster is the location for a proposed mixed use redevelopment.

 

The land was originally occupied by Hodgson's tannery, a large leather goods business. The tannery closed in 1987 leaving only the chemical side of the business in operation. This would later become part of Clariant Chemicals.

 Part of the site was sold to become The Museum Of Army Transport. This housed, not only road vehicles but also locomotives, boats and even the last remaining Blackburn Beverley transport plane. Fifty of these aircraft were built in the 1950's at the nearby Brough airfield.

The museum closed in 2003 and the exhibits transferred elsewhere. Clariant, a Swiss company, closed it's specialist chemical works in 2005, transferring production to Selby.

Development of the eastern end of the site is already well under way with construction of 130 homes. The commercial development of 10 acres will include a new campus for East Riding College,  a five screen cinema and public hall, an hotel, offices and multi storey car par as well as a number of retail units and restaurants.

Construction of the context models at a location such as Beverley is an enjoyable challenge. Although I was called upon to build only simple block representations, the Minster without it's pinnacles and flying buttresses would have lacked interest. 

Here the model is seen from the West Front before painting. 

Another landmark is the railway station which features an overall roof and footbridge.

The train helps to animate the model. At 1:500 scale this is quite small!

The narrow streets of Beverley under construction.

New shopping and entertainment opportunities.

Turning The Place Over

Leaving Liverpool's Moorfields Station one day, I was stopped in my tracks when I saw part of the building opposite starting to move! "Turning The Place Over" was an installation by sculptor Richard Wilson in a redundant Liverpool office building. Part of the Liverpool Biennial celebration of 2007, this must be one of the most imaginative installations ever. Wilson cut an 8 metre hole in the building and installed a light sensitive mechanism to turn the disc inside out. Watch the Youtube video to see the full sequence http://youtu.be/DBXwA0gcBm4

Edward Salomons, A Manchester Architect

Edward Salomons was a notable Victorian architect. He was born in London in 1828. His father, German born Henry Moses Salomons moved his cotton business to Manchester in 1837 and lived in then fashionable Plymouth Grove. Edward was educated by tutors and at his father's office. He was employed at different architects offices in the City and in 1850 enrolled at the Manchester School of Design becoming a RIBA member the following year. In 1852 he started his own practice at 63 King Street where he was based for many years, sometimes working in partnership. Although he went on to build many commercial buildings, he was unsuccessful in competitions; he came second with his design for the Free Trade Hall.

Perhaps the best known of his buildings is the former Reform Club on King Street. A wonderfully decorative, italianate style building which now houses fashionable shops and restaurants.

1857 was the date of the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition and Salomons was involved in the design of the exhibition hall, a temporary structure similar to the Crystal Palace. This exhibition of 16,000 works, perhaps the largest the World has ever seen was in Trafford Park and attracted 1.3 million visitors.

Salomons was responsible for designing a number of synagogues. The Spanish and Portuguese synagogue on Cheetham Hill Road is now the Manchester Jewish Museum. This excellent museum with its preserved interior includes many exhibits and photographs from Manchester's Jewish community.

Salomons was also an accomplished artist and his works appear from time to time at auction. He was prominent in the cultural and artisitic life of the City and was a founder member of the Manchester Society of Architects..

Most of Salomons designs were for commercial buildings although later in his career, he worked on some domestic projects. One of these, Glencroft, in Furness Vale was built for the Thackeray family who were related to William Makepeace Thackeray. The house is little changed today although now screened by trees. He also designed his own house, The Gables in Victoria Park, now incorporated into a university residential sceme.

Edward Salomons died in 1906 and was cremated at Manchester Crematorium, a building which he himself had designed.

Glencroft, Furness Vale

 

 

Cheetham Hill Road

Reform Club, King Street

Streets In The Sky. The Brave New World Of Hulme

Hulme was a slum.
Industrial expansion in 19th century Manchester saw hundreds of homes rapidly built to poor standards. Hulme, south west of the city centre was also a manufacturing area and it was here that the first Rolls Royce factory was established.
A massive slum clearance programme in the late 1960's saw the demolition of an entire community. The replacement housing scheme, the largest in Europe consisted of over 3000 homes, many in the Crescents. These "streets in the sky" were inspired by the Georgian crescent in Bath and even won design awards. It was very quickly found that the buildings were seriously flawed and suffered from damp, ineffective heating and pest infestations. The Crescents were opened in 1972, but only two years later hundreds of families were being re-housed leaving the flats occupied by single people and students. Conditions became so bad that by 1984, the council stopped collecting rents.
Less than 20 years after construction, Hulme was again rebuilt. The crescents and tower blocks were demolished in 1991.
The new Hulme is un-recognizable. New housing has been designed in consultation with residents and consists largely of streets of modern terraced housing and low rise apartment blocks. Crime has fallen dramatically and the area has attracted a large number of professional residents due to its proximity to the City and Universities.
Time out has published an evocative album of pictures taken by resident photographer Al Baker : http://www.timeout.com/manchester/art/23-fascinating-photos-of-old-hulme-from-al-baker

 

 

 

The village of Pendon Parva

It is hard to believe when looking at some of these pictures, that this a scale model. I have always considered the creators of Pendon Museum to be the best model makers in the world; I think the reader might agree.
I visited Pendon Museum at Long Wittenham in Oxfordshire in the late 1960's. Although I had been modelmaking since my early teens I had never seen work of such a high standard and was immediately inspired to try to emulate it.
When Australian born Roye England arrived in the U.K. in 1925, he settled for a while in the Vale of the White Horse in Wiltshire and fell in love with the idyllic country around his home. Change was coming and he witnessed the cottages and farms being modernised and saw the coming of the motor car, Realising that the countryside was changing for ever, he vowed to preserve it in the only way that he knew; in miniature. He developed his own methods of creating these models. They had to be durable and at the same time perfect in every detail. He explained how, faced with the problem of reproducing thatch, he experimented with human hair using various treatments to emulate straw. The hair had a tendency to curl and it was only when his barber had a Chinese customer that Roye found the solution.
The ficticious village of Pendon Parva lies in a stretch of countryside one mile long, such is the size of this model and is modelled as it would have appeared in the early 1930's. The buildings are perfect copies of homes, farms, pubs that once existed in rural Wiltshire. A main line railway runs through the valley and periodically a train, sometimes very long will trundle sedately along the tracks. As night falls lights start to appear in the windows of the houses; just a glimmer for electricity has yet to come to Pendon and oil lamps and candles provide the only illumination.
The model is housed in a large building and there is more to see. In another scene, a section of Dartmoor is re-created where a railway crosses a valley on a large timber viaduct. The railway through Dawlish, running along the shoreline is the latest exhibit.
Many years ago, John Ahearne built a model railway which he called the Madder Valley Railway. It became popular through the pages of magazines where its owner would take the reader on a guided tour of his fictional land. When he died, his widow donated the model railway to Pendon where it has been re-erected and can ocassionally be seen operating.
I would recommend viewing the Pendon Museum website where the gallery includes a large number of views of the models. Better still, make the journey to Oxfordshire and see for yourself. http://www.pendonmuseum.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Wallasey Hydraulic Tower

Standing on the banks of the East Float, the Wallasey Hydraulic Tower and Engine House once provided power to the locks and bridges of Birkenhead Docks.

Palazzo Vecchio

 Designed by Jesse Hartley, the building copied the style of Palazzo Vecchio in Firenze. Hartley was Civil Engineer and Superintendent of Liverpool's Dock Estate from 1824 until 1860. He learned his skills working for the notable architect John Carr and for the Duke of Devonshire. He was responsible for the construction of many of the Mersey docks and warehouses including Albert Dock.

The tower was completed in 1863 but has been derelict since the docks fell into disuse. It had been damaged during the Second World War and suffered further in the 50's when an accumulator pump failed. Although it was rebuilt, the restoration was hardly sympathetic and the distinctive lantern was not replaced.

 Now within Peel Group's Wirral Waters development scheme, there are proposals to renovate the power station and its' remaining equipment. This design by  Falconer, Chester, Hall Architects of Liverpool includes an adjacent visitors centre and landscaping of the site to include dockside pontoons. Old railway sidings crossing the land would be retained and the nearby museum tramway might even be extended to run alongside.